


Short Stories

by moderndayportia



Category: Naruto
Genre: Drabbles, F/M, oneshots, ratings and warnings on top of each chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:08:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25023697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moderndayportia/pseuds/moderndayportia
Summary: Self-contained Kakasaku oneshots and drabbles, originally published on Tumblr. Warnings and ratings vary by chapter.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Hatake Kakashi
Comments: 15
Kudos: 65





	1. Currents

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a drabble prompt from bouncyirwin. Thank you! I’m still warming up my writing after a long, long break, so if you have a prompt, feel free to drop it in my Ask box on Tumblr (moderndayportia.tumblr.com)
> 
> Pairing: Kakasaku  
> Rating: None  
> Warning: Major Character Death

Katsuyu appears on his shoulder for the second time that day in a puff of smoke swept away by the acrid ash swirling around him. Kakashi shudders as he ruthlessly wrenches his hand from yet another chest cavity. Around him his Anbu guard are fighting furiously, their usually studied restraint corrupted by a desire for blood.

The village is in ruins.

The strike had been precise and planned. Strategic buildings flattened to charred rubble in a hot, pulsing instant. The Hokage tower is a firey tomb, its charred bones burning hot in the stark afternoon bright.

Kakashi dodges a barrage and ducks behind an Earth-release wall where he finds several Katsuyu lying on Shikamaru’s bleeding head. Relief washes through him.

Sakura had summoned them early on in the attack, layering the village in an instant net of healing.

_No deaths_ , he tells himself as he sends a wave of purple lightning through the rubbled ground beneath his guards’ feet before it bursts out of the Earth with a violent crack, eviscerating the circle of enemies surrounding them.

Sakura is life embodied in the face of the reaper.

High overhead a hawk circles and cries—a message for him.

_No time_ , Kakashi thinks as more enemies rush in close.

“Hatake-sama,” Katsuyu says softly on his shoulder.

“Leave me, I’m fine,” he grunts. Other than waning chakra reserves, he is fine now. She had completely healed his extensive burns earlier.

_He is fine_ , _they are fine_ , he tells to himself as he spins a kunai, dodges, and then jams it into the eye socket of a woman cloaked in all black.

Is he their target? He doesn’t know.

A loud, ear-splitting boom tears from the East, and Kakashi sees Gamabunta towering high into the sky, Naruto perched on his head like a glowing beacon.

_They’ll be okay._

“Hatake-sama, I don’t have much time,” Katsuyu insists softly again.

Kakashi stops cold.

His heart beats once, twice, then the sick dread fills him like a roar.

He glances towards Shikamaru and watches the Katsuyu on him linger and then fade.

“Where?” he asks, his tongue like ash in his mouth.

“The school,” Katsuyu answers weakly, before she too disappears.

He is gone in an instant.

* * *

Sakura’s world is a flood of pain as she lies twisted and broken in the rubble.

Shizune is hovering over her, saying something, but she can’t hear anything but ringing. Sakura tries to follow the movements of her lips, but everything seems to be moving further away and slower. The pain is swelling in violent waves.

A cloud of choking smoke swirls overhead. He **r** world tilts and spins.

_The school…._

The school is burning.

Sakura tries to roll onto her side, but a violent agony tears through her and her mouth tastes of iron.

_Are they all out?_

Shizune is crying. Her hands shaking. The bright lantern of her chakra paints the ankles of Sakura’s guards, standing around them in a tense circle.

_The school…._

She closes her eyes and is inundated by the rising tide of pain.

A demanding hand presses gently against her cheek.

_Kakashi?_

He looks worried. His mask is down.

His lips move. Again and again. He is holding her face.

_It hurts._ She is confused. Her eyes feel heavy.

Kakashi says something to Shizune who argues with him briefly and then bites her lip and leans forward to press her hands over Sakura’s ears. Her hands are bloody. So bloody.

Sound roars in like a tsunami. The first things she hears is her own gurgling breaths.

_It hurts._

“Sakura,” Kakashi says. “Sakura,” again, more forcefully. He is holding her face and leaning so close.

“Ka-“ she tries, but nothing else will come. Sirens are blaring through the air.

_The school….._

“Sakura, activate your seal,” Kakashi says, his voice a sharp knife.

_Her seal?_

“Do it. Activate your seal,” he demands.

_Her seal._

It comes back to her then, the world snapping into a bitter focus. The devastation. The fires. The bodies.

Her friends. Her family. Her village.

She had called Katsuyu early. The destruction was so wild and immeasurable. She had drained herself, and then activated her seal and drained herself again.

She was empty. The places left hollow by her chakra were now filled with searing pain.

“Sakura,” Kakashi pleads from above her. “Do it.”

Sakura looks up at him as he traces his fingers across her smoke-dyed cheeks.

She aches to reach up and run her thumb down his scar. One last time.

She shakes her head slightly. Her mouth has filled with blood.

“No,” he says. “No.”

He glances wildly at Shizune who has her bloodied hands pressed over her mouth as she holds in silent howls.

Devastation mars his perfect face when he turns back to her.

She is drowning in it.

_The school…._

“Sakura, please,” he whispers, his voice breaking as he clutches her face.

She gasps and tries to find words. “H-hurts-”she mangles in her broken mouth.

Kakashi’s head falls forward and his soft silver hair brushes against her cheek. He whispers quaking promises into her neck.

Sakura shutters and her chest strangles in one, two, three breaths before he rises again. His face is resolved.

Strong hands cradle her head. The tomoe of his Sharingan spins steadily as he draws her broken body nearer. She feels the unfamiliar tug of his eye dragging her in to a soft, quiet place.

_‘The school…._ ’ is the last thing she thinks as her world sinks into deep, painless black.

* * *

Sakura awakes slowly in a bed of soft green grass. She sits up and looks in wonder at the world around her.

A river, broad and slow, stretches in front of her, dancing with the brilliant reflection of the sunset on the other side. Behind her, the stars twinkle in a vast expanse of velvet black.

The air is warm and quiet but for the cicada song carried through the lingering dusk.

She does not remember how she got here. Who she is feels like a distant dream. She is here.

She is.

She stands slowly to survey her surroundings. Her body feels weightless and pain free. She is wearing a soft white yukata, tied right over left. Her feet are bare and her hair loose.

She steps lightly through the green grass.

Down by the river is a dock. Next to it a small white rowboat, unmoored, bobs up and down.

Sakura returns to sit on the riverbank and watches the water pass.

She waits for a long while. Time seems different here. The sun never changes its position on the horizon. The river flows, the rowboat bobs, and the cicada sing.

Fireflies dance in and out of the reeds in the river’s shallows, their fragile glow mesmerizing.

Eventually—minutes, hours or days later—she stands and starts walking upstream. A well-trodden path leads her gently through the grass and reeds, past a swaying willow tree, and back to a dock.

Sakura tries again, walking downstream this time, and is returned once again to the dock. Was it the same dock?

She finds a coin in her sleeve and leaves it on the railing before trying again.

It is the same.

This world is a small circle, and every path leads back to the dock.

Sakura feels a deep tiredness wash over her. She walks down the path to the willow tree, lies under its swaying bows and closes her eyes.

She dreams of a man with shocking silver hair. He stands at a graveside and prays. Two solemn little girls scuff their feet beside him, the bigger one holding the younger one’s hand.

When she awakes, the air is heavy with incense.

Her world is a small globe and her consciousness condenses to the ever dusk. In her dreams, she finds more. Small windows open into the world that was. She watches the man and his daughters. Time is passing for them. He grows older and so do they.

She charts the passage of time via the lines on his handsome face.

Often when she wakes there are flowers drifting down the current. She sits on the dock, dips her toes into the water, and watches them go.

Sometimes small plates of food are balanced on the moss-covered rocks. She is not hungry, cannot taste, but she eats them and an energy glows warm from her belly.

She waits. Still and calm. Watches the water flow past. The sun never sets. The night never rises.

She isn’t bored. She just is.

One day she wakes and the man is standing on the other side of the river, silhouetted by the sunset.

His name swells up in her mind, a memory that had been held in the deep for too long.

_Kakashi_.

Her hand rises to her face and she feels hot, salty tears streaking down.

A damn bursts inside her, and it all comes flooding back in.

_Kakashi!_

She rushes to the white rowboat and steps inside for the first time. There are no oars, but it lurches and begins to propel itself across the river, pulled by some unknown force.

Her eyes never leave him. The time it takes to reach him aches.

The boat knocks against the sunset shore and Sakura tumbles into his waiting arms.

They sink into the sand and hold each other in a desperate embrace.

She is sobbing, overcome by the emotions that have been anchored to him for so long.

“I kept them safe,” he whispers over and over again as he holds her in his strong arms. “I kept them safe.”

She looks up into his face, young and unmarred by the passage of time, and he wipes the tears from her cheeks.

“I waited,” she tells him.

“I know,” he says and bends to catch her lips in a soft kiss.

They linger for some time—days, weeks or months or years. They make love in the half-night. He tells her the story of life after hers, of their daughters, of their grandchildren. Of the seeds they planted that grew big and spread.

Of a life lived for a promise made.

He holds her in his arms in the soft grass and they rest.

One day Sakura wakes before him. He finds her standing by the dock, watching the river’s constant flow.

She turns back, her green eyes burning brightly in the half-light, and holds out her hand.

He takes it.

It’s time.

The current catches the white rowboat and carries them on.


	2. 4 Seasons, 5 Centimeters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is based on a drabble prompt from skashi-k on Tumblr. Thank you! I’m trying to get my writing skills back up to par by warming up with a few of these, so if you have a drabble request, feel free to drop it in my ask box. moderndayportia.tumblr.com
> 
> Pairing: Kakasaku  
> Rating: None

“Open your eyes.”

A soft voice sparked in the deep, stagnant darkness in which he existed. He tried to shift, but there was no body to shift. He tried to open his eyes, but there were no eyes to open.

He was nothing, and it was okay.

The blackness rushed in tighter.

“Kakashi,” the voice lit through the void.

Again. “Kakashi.” More insistent.

The tense sound of pained breathing gathered at the corners of his consciousness.

“Kakashi, open your eyes.”

_No._

A tether yanked hard. Kakashi didn’t want to go, but he couldn’t stop the force that had ensnared him.

Up, up, up. He was dragged out of the deep, empty pool of unconsciousness, and plunged into a red world of searing pain.

His ears- yes, he had ears and eyes and a body- rang with the blaring of a siren. Everything was defined by hurt.

“Kakashi, it’s okay. I’ve got you.”

_Sakura._

It was Sakura. Her seal was activated.

Something roiled in his belly and he jerked to the side and vomited blood.

* * *

“You look like shit,” she said with no malice.

Kakashi scrubbed his hands through his hair and then pulled up his mask.

She had appeared suddenly in front of him as he crouched in the dusky shadows on the roof of Konoha’s Grand Temple. He was on guard duty—or on the pretense of guard duty.

His name was still on the evaluation list after that mission. The one where—

Sakura huffed and stepped gently across the ancient clay eaves before sinking into the space directly to his right, where he knew she knew he could keep an eye on her.

Underneath his hitai-ate Obito’s Sharingan ached.

“What’s with the uniform?” he asked, his voice slightly unfamiliar to his own ears.

“I’m going out,” she responded simply.

“Hn,” he answered. Because what was there really to say?

He had ordered her not to follow him into Anbu. Had actively pulled strings and called in favors to make sure she wasn’t accepted. But there she was, sitting next to him in the all black uniform reserved for nighttime missions.

Assassinations. Hostage taking. Mayhem. Murder. Blood.

It’s not what he’d wanted for her.

He was tired.

He shifted and stood slowly, the places that still hurt making themselves known.

“Be careful.” His voice was a weary sigh. A breeze passed behind him and she was gone.

Kakashi yanked his mask back down. The late summer air was suddenly stifling.

His eye traced the angles of the elaborate roof until they settled on a certain spot—the eaves were newer, slightly less sun-bleached. They stood out even in the waning evening light.

His friend Hayate had died over there.

Kakashi slouched and limped back into the dark shadows.

He was so, so tired.

* * *

“Here, eat,” Sakura said, holding out a tin plate piled high.

Kakashi glanced up briefly from where he was lounging under the crimson bows of a Fire Country oak tree, and then turned the page of his book, ignoring her.

“Kakashi.” A tinge of temper colored his name.

“Hm?” he asked dismissively.

“I said eat.” Her patience was slipping.

“Leave me be,” he responded, maintaining the façade of reading.

She stood for a moment watching him, her cheeks flushed red with anger.

“That’s an order,” he reiterated stoically.

“Fine.” She set the plate at his feet and returned to the campfire where the rest of their Anbu squad was warming themselves by the crackling fire.

Kakashi closed his book, slipped on his Anbu mask and leaned his head back against the sturdy trunk, pretending to sleep.

Always pretending.

* * *

The gates of Konoha before him climbed high into the stark winter sky. Always steady. Always protecting. Cold stone and mortar built and guarded by warm flesh and red blood.

Kakashi glanced back at his mission-weary squad, crunching behind him through knee-deep snow. They had done well.

“We’ll debrief on Monday at 8:00 AM,” he directed. Several members perked up and blinked at him in surprise. “You’re on R&R until then.”

They lingered in the coldness, not sure what to do.

“Dismissed,” Kakashi barked.

Knowing not to question a good thing when it came their way, the members of his squad dispersed into the night in a flash. Except for one.

Sakura, of course.

“I said dismissed, Sakura.”

Sakura hesitated. She seemed to have developed that annoying habit recently.

“I just…”

She walked slowly towards him, her feet skimming above the snow. Perfect chakra control left her alone able to move with the stealth expected of them even at the end of a long, arduous mission.

She reached into her side pouch and pulled out a package wrapped in brown paper. “I made this for you.”

Kakashi looked at the package in her extended hand and then at her.

An unfamiliar emotion flashed from her eyes.

“What—what is it?” he asked rigidly.

“Open it and you’ll see.”

Kakashi meticulously untied the twine around the package and unfolded the paper to reveal a soft piece of red fabric folded neatly inside.

“What is it?” he asked again, glancing up at her.

That look was shining even more brightly from her eyes. “It’s a scarf! I made it for you,” she smiled warmly.

“Why?” Kakashi asked, not able to keep the indignance out of his voice.

Sakura grabbed the scarf. “Because,” she groused, “It’s cold.” She somewhat roughly looped it around his neck and pulled it snug. “And it’s Christmas.”

As she adjusted the tails against the front of his armored vest, Kakashi realized how close she was. The warmth of her body reached out to him through the frigid air. Her cheeks were rosy red when she peeked up at him.

“Merry Christmas, Kakashi,” she whispered, eyes avoiding his.

“….Merry Christmas,” he answered. And then she too was gone. Not even footsteps left in her wake.

Kakashi stood in the bright moonlight for a long moment, thinking. He no longer felt cold.

* * *

Another Spring, another wedding.

Since he’d been declared next in line for Hokage, Kakashi’s presence was often required at these kinds of events. He’d rather be napping in a field somewhere or out on a mission, but he did his duty and put on the stiff formal attire and smiled and nodded and shook hands.

New beginnings meant his Anbu days were over and a long string of diplomacy and politics lay ahead.

He’d always thought he’d have a warrior’s death. But things change. And so do people.

Kakashi slouched against a wall and took deep sips of his shochu when nobody was looking. His head was spinning a little. They hadn’t skimped on the premium stuff.

He turned his glass around in his hands and examined a little too closely the way it caught the afternoon sunlight.

Across the garden Sakura was talking with a man he recognized from Planning and Logistics.

Nice guy, but not good enough for her, he told himself as he snuck another gulp.

He hadn’t seen her in a while. Not since she had formally accepted the position of Head Medic. He’d been relieved when she’d finally handed him her resignation, but sometimes he found himself missing her company.

Today she looked—

Beautiful.

The long sleeves of her furisode kimono were adorned with an intricate climbing lilac motif that perfectly complemented her soft pink hair. They also signaled to every bachelor in the room that she was unmarried.

Young, beautiful and unmarried.

Kakashi sighed and turned to leave. Thanks to Tsunade-sama’s orchestrated drinking game at the head table, the wedding party was reaching a point of alcoholic stupor that ensured he would not be missed.

He ducked out the gate and into the shady afternoon street littered with a soft blanket of pink from a tall, ancient cherry tree towering overhead. He regretted that he’d rarely been in the village this time of year.

Konoha glowed.

“Kakashi,” a voice called.

Of course. She wouldn’t let him get away that easily.

Deciding to be amenable, Kakashi turned back to see Sakura hurrying towards him, as quickly and gracefully as her kimono would allow.

“Hello, Sakura,” he said.

“Are you leaving?” she asked, a small, familiar crease between her eyebrows showing itself.

He fought the urge to run his thumb over it and rub it out.

“Yes,” he answered simply.

Sakura glanced around the empty street before looking back at him. “Please don’t,” she said timidly.

“Why?”

Sakura looked to the side and hesitated. A gentle breeze rustled through the bows high above, and a rain of soft petals fell around them.

Long ago, Minato-sensei had told Kakashi that the velocity of a falling cherry blossom petal was 5 centimeters per a second as Kakashi tried to catch as many as he could on the blade of his tanto.

Sakura laughed a little and stepped closer.

Kakashi waited, stone still.

She rose up to her toes and reached to comb her fingers through his hair. Kakashi closed his eye. This kind of touch—neither to hurt nor heal—was also a distant memory.

“You have petals in your hair,” Sakura said breathlessly.

Kakashi opened his eye. She was still close. She too had petals in her hair. Her eyes burned green in the half-light. A soft blush painted her cheeks.

Now, his heart screamed.

Now.

His hands rose to softly hold her waist as he leaned in. Centimeters separated their lips.

“Kakashi,” she whispered.

Now.

His lips pressed against hers softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews are not required, but greatly appreciated <3

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are appreciated! <3


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